T.Anjel: Hehe.a new fic. I know, but I'm not sure if I'm going to
continue this. This is just a test chapter. According to the responses I
get, I'm either going to throw it in the trash or continue it. ::Shrug::
Disclaimers: Rurouni Kenshin does not belong to me.
To Love the Hated - Chapter 1
"I never agreed to this!" Kenshin yelled angrily.
"I did," his large shishou answered back simply.
"Why? I could pick out a wife in due time," Kenshin argued, gripping the chair's armrest painfully.
"You don't have that kind of time, baka deshi!" Hiko said, drinking his sake in annoyance. "You refused to marry any of the princesses, so now we're resorting to this. Don't argue with me. You're dismissed."
Kenshin grit his teeth in anger, but managed to stomp away from Hiko's dark study. He had never yelled at his uncle before, and he definitely was never mad at him. Kenshin clenched his fists and walked along the hallway. Being crown prince was hell. He was forced to go to countless balls and dinners to meet up with princess after princess who spilled their pitiful selves over him, offering him of their love.
Kenshin sighed and slowed his walk to a dawdle. He was on the top floor where his and his shishou's rooms were. Because there were such minimal rooms on that floor, the whole center of the entire level was cut away, making it a balcony, which oversaw the lower floor. And being that the land was so huge, there were only two floors, the lower floor and the top floor. Kenshin leaned his elbows on the balcony rail, watching the quiet bustling of the servants and maids of the palace.
A loud shout sliced through the silence.
"Let me go! You have no right to do this! Get off of me!"
Kenshin raised his eyebrows in wonderment. Two guards were carrying a struggling woman into the palace. One held her flailing arms and the other guard carried her kicking legs.
"Let me go!" With a last effort, the woman freed her right leg and kicked the guard holding her legs squarely in the jaw, knocking him over. She swiveled around and brushed her legs under the other guard's legs. He tripped over them and fell down, but he kept a hard grip on the woman's arms and dragged her down with him.
The first guard who got kicked by the woman struggled himself up and pinned her legs down. "Stop trying to escape, Jou-chan!" he growled quite loudly.
"Then let me go," she snarled.
"No can do!" he replied cheerfully, helping his fellow guard up and keeping a firm grip on the woman. "King's orders."
"Then take me to him," she said, keeping her voice low and steady.
"No can do!" the guard repeated.
"I'm not going to audition for some damn prince!" she yelled, thrashing once again.
"How many times do I have to tell you? It's not an audition," the guard said, trying to keep her legs still.
"How is it not?" she asked frowning, and keeping herself still for a moment and glaring into the guard's eyes. "I'm being kept here against my own free will for an year to be evaluated. Why, you ask? Simple! Because the prince can't pick out some dandy little princess from some other damn kingdom, and now's he's going to have a long line of single women from his own kingdom to pick from. And I bet that if he's not satisfied, he's going to go for some other kingdom! And back to being why this is an audition. Wouldn't it be great if one of these women were to be the next queen? What and exciting turn in life that would be!" The woman didn't seemed to have taken any breaths between her sentences and sarcastic outbursts. "Of course, the prince would expect all the women to line up at the door, and being his picky little self, he would choose the fairest of the all. So now, with this great able chance of being queen, who wouldn't put rouge on their cheeks and paint their nails and line up at the door? Hell, you might as well call it an audition! To be queen, to be exact."
"What's so bad about that, Jou-chan?" the guard asked, staring right back into the woman's eyes. "You probably won't even get picked."
"Then why am I here?" she yelled explosively, popping everyone's ears that were in range.
"King's orders." And they were right back at where they started. The woman grumbled.
"Now will you go to your room in silence?" The guard who hadn't spoken the whole time suddenly said.
The woman grumbled something Kenshin couldn't hear, and suddenly she was being escorted quietly to the hallways underneath the balcony where he couldn't see.
"Feisty one," someone said beside him. It was the guard who was arguing with the woman.
"When did you get here, Sanosuke?" Kenshin asked.
"Aoshi's taking her to the room," Sano answered simply, staring down at the floor, feet below him.
"Why was she being so resistant?" Kenshin asked.
Sano shrugged. "She was shouting something about how she hated the royal kin and such. She wouldn't stop yelling or trying to escape the whole time we were in the carriage. I swear she never runs out of energy!"
"Aa.," Kenshin said, slightly disappointed for no particular reason.
"Well, I have to go pick up the rest of the girls," Sano said suddenly, getting off from the marble rail.
"Aa, Sano," Kenshin quickly said before Sano climbed down the stairs.
"Yeah?"
"What's her name?" Kenshin asked.
"The one that just came in?" Sanosuke inquired, pointing at another woman being escorted by another guard.
Kenshin shook his head. "No, the rebellious one."
"Oh her.hmmm. I think it was Kaoru. Yea. Kamiya Kaoru."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"There are no means of escape from this room, Kamiya-san," Aoshi said stiffly before shutting the door.
"Mou! This is so unfair!" Kaoru said to no one in particular, scowling at the shut door.
"Nothing in life is fair anymore. Kamiya-san, was it?"
Kaoru turned around to see a petite young woman, dressed in maid's attire of an apron and handkerchief on the head. "You can call me Kaoru," Kaoru said with a small smile.
"I'm Makimachi Misao," Misao said, putting out a hand of welcome. Kaoru shook it, and was immediate friends with the young woman. She looked around at her surroundings.
"So this is where all the candidates are to be kept?" Kaoru asked. It was a large room, decorated in white. It was quite a huge room to be holding six queen sized beds, three on each side of the room. All of them had their own hangings and quilts. To the opposite wall of the entrance door, were three doors. As Misao later said, the left one was an enormous, walk-in closet full of dresses. The second one was a small hallway leading to three extremely large bathrooms, and the third door led to a smaller closet with nightgowns and even some gis and hakamas.
"According to my instructions, you are to get a good night's rest, bathe, and pick out a dress for tomorrow," Misao said, as if reading it off of a pamphlet.
"And what are we doing tomorrow?" Kaoru asked.
Misao shrugged. "I'm not sure, but according to what Sae-san and Tae- san told me, all the women are to be treated as if they were the queen already, and according to their behavior and attitude, they will be chosen as the next queen or disqualified."
"Is there any place that I could escape from?" Kaoru asked innocently, no wanting to be pampered for a whole year.
"Nope," Misao said. "Your best chance of getting out of here is if you get the prince or king to dislike you immensely."
"I see," Kaoru said. "I could do that. Well then. Oyasumi, Misao- chan!" Kaoru said good-heartedly.
"You're sleeping already?" Misao asked. She consulted the high position of the sun. "It's so early!"
"What am I supposed to do while I'm awake?" Kaoru asked, dragging a blanket from a nearby bed to the floor. "Bask in this rich glory?" She snorted. "I think not."
"What are you doing with the blanket?" Misao asked, curiosity overwhelming her.
"Sleeping on the floor," Kaoru stated, sliding herself under the quilted covers.
"What's wrong with the bed?" Misao inquired.
"It's too soft," Kaoru replied, turning over to her side. "I could probably drown in it if I sleep in it.'
Misao sweatdropped. "You do know I'm going to have to report everything that goes on in here, ne?"
"Report everything I said while you're at it," Kaoru said. "I might be lucky enough to get kicked out on the first day."
"Are you usually this.eh.pessimistic?" Misao asked politely.
"No," Kaoru replied. She sat up from the floor. "I just have this tad bit of dislike for the whole royalty thing."
"Just a tad?"
"Just a tad," Kaoru reassured.
The door swung opened, and two other women were gently pushed inside. Their attire was almost the same as Kaoru's: Brownish rags and hand-made shoes. But both women seemed to like the richness and glory they were presented with.
"Oyasumi, Misao-chan," Kaoru said, covering her form with the blanket.
Misao gave a sigh, and introduced the other two women with the room and what they were expected to do.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Kaoru was the first to wake up. It could have been because she was the first to sleep. She yawned and stretched to her heart's content, and rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes. She stood up and looked around the room. Snoozing women who, to Kaoru's guess, were wearing new, silk nightgowns took the other five beds. She gave a sigh, and heaved the blanket she used back onto its original bed.
I might as well take a bath, Kaoru thought, and trudged along through the middle door. She grabbed a towel from a pile on the floor and stepped into one of the bathrooms. The tub is as big as my cabin, Kaoru thought with distaste and turned the modern faucet on. Steam immediately began floating from the giant tub.
Kaoru stripped herself of her rags and stepped into the steaming water. I could get used to this, she thought, closing her eyes as the warmth overcame her senses into comfortable bliss.
The rest of the morning was a blur. The other five women, as Kaoru had thought, were totally excited about the idea of being queen. They all took long baths and took their time in picking out a dress. Most of them picked fancy dresses with innumerable amounts of fluff and lace. All of it was giving Kaoru a migraine. She, herself, had picked out a simple, blue dress that brushed the ground. It covered her shoulders and had a very modest neckline.
Misao entered their room and announced that breakfast was to be served. All of the women filed out feeling ecstatic and nervous. Kaoru was just feeling exhausted from wearing a dress. She followed the other women out but ended up tripping at the hem of her dress.
"Kuso," Kaoru mumbled as she fell face-flat on the floor. Thank goodness it was carpeted.
"Daijoubu?" Misao asked, kneeling over the fallen Kaoru.
"I'm fine," Kaoru huffed and sat up. "Do you have a knife with you?"
"Don't do it!" Misao said in sudden alarm. "You can live through this! Don't."
"Baka," Kaoru said good-heartedly. "I'm not going to kill myself. I'm just going to shorten the dress a little."
Misao let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "You could just hold the dress up while you walk."
"I'm probably not going to remember to," Kaoru said and held out a hand. Misao put her pocketknife in it. With a loud rip, Kaoru cut off a foot of the dress off of the bottom.
"You ripped so much off!" Misao exclaimed.
"I could actually run in this then," Kaoru said with a grin.
"But they don't expect you to run," Misao said pointedly. "I'll help you pick out another dress. C'mon, Kaoru-san."
"It's okay," Kaoru said, getting up and dusting herself off. "I'm going to breakfast like this."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kenshin sighed. He was sitting at the end of the long maple table adorned with flowers and bowls of fruits. Hiko sat at the other end, looking satisfied and amused.
"They're coming," Kenshin heard one of the guards say from the far wall. And just as he said it, a line of woman filed into the huge dining room. They all looked flushed and nervous as they all took seats near the middle of the table. They didn't seem to want to go near Kenshin or Hiko.
Kenshin scanned the women and was looking for a particular woman who sparked his interest the other day. Kamiya Kaoru. She's not here, Kenshin noted with disappointment. Is she skipping breakfast?
As the women seated themselves, the servants of the palace served mouth-watering dishes along the table. Hiko seemed to watching all of them, seeing who dared touch their food before he did.
Kenshin's ears perked up at the hurried footsteps that approached the echoing dining room. It was Kamiya with a simple dress of blue, which was ripped at the bottom. She still looked beautiful.
"Sorry I'm late!" she yelled out, directing her tardy comment at the king.
Hiko eyed her. "What happened to your dress?"
"Oh this?" Kaoru asked innocently, spreading her dress out like a fan. "I ripped it."
Hiko raised his eyebrows, asking for an explanation.
"I kept tripping over the hem," Kaoru answered honestly in a chirpy voice. "So I decided to rip the bottom off to make it more convenient for me."
"Go change," Hiko commanded in a cool voice which made two women near him sigh.
"There's no point," Kaoru argued back. "The dresses were meant for the women staying here for the time being, are they not? So I'm going to assume that this dress is mine, and unless you are planning to wear it, Ou- sama, I'm not going to change out of it."
Kenshin could have sworn he saw a temple pulse on his shishou's forehead. "Well then. I suggest you eat your breakfast if you're going to be so stubborn."
Kaoru kept her nose in the air and took an empty seat two seats away from Kenshin. A plate was immediately set in front of her with steaming eggs, pancakes and bacon. She had never seen this kind of food before. She prodded it with her fork, examining the oily strip of meat.
"It's food from the west," Kenshin explained to the curious woman.
"Sou ka," Kaoru said, still staring at the bacon and poking it. She plopped a strip in her mouth. "Oishii!!" Kaoru exclaimed, savoring the taste in her mouth. She noticed the disapproving looks she got from the other women. "Oh! Were we not supposed to eat yet?" Kaoru asked to the woman next to her quite loudly.
"You're supposed to eat after Ou-sama and Ouji-sama take their first bite, tanuki," the woman replied back.
Kaoru scowled at the nickname. "So when is Ou-sama planning to eat?" Kaoru asked.
The woman shrugged. "Any time now.," she said watching the burly king. Kaoru tapped her foot while waiting for him to at least take a bite of his food. As if he had wanted to put the woman on hold, he slowly put a piece of his pancake in his mouth. Arrogant man, Kaoru noted and turned over to the prince who had already taken a nibble of his eggs. The other women began eating quietly and politely.
Kaoru watched the prince from the corner of her eye and couldn't help admitting that he was quite good-looking. His flaming bangs just brushed over his soft, violet eyes, which was a combination Kaoru didn't usually see.
It doesn't matter if he's good-looking, Kaoru thought to herself. He's still a prince, and he's probably some jerk wanting all these women. Feh! Kaoru slurped her miso soup loudly. She immediately perked up. She motioned for a nearby servant to come over.
"Hai?" he asked politely, leaning over her chair.
"What's in this?" Kaoru asked, pointing at the miso soup with her spoon.
He sweatdropped. "I'm not quite sure, ma'am. I don't make the food."
"Who does?" Kaoru inquired.
"Tae-san and Sae-san," the man replied. "They're usually in the kitchens if you wish to speak to them."
"I see. Thanks!" Kaoru chirped and slapped the servant on the back for good measure. He stumbled.
"No problem," he said, and took his position back by the wall.
Kaoru quickly finished the rest of the food, clanging her utensils and slurping her soup as she did. The women shot nervous glances at her, trying her to signal to her to eat more like a polite woman. Kaoru ignored them and downed the last of her food with large gulps of water. She slammed her glass down and gave a satisfying sigh. It sounded quite loud compared to the quiet way everyone was eating.
Kenshin watched the woman with interest. She was definitely brave to have argued with the king, and she was most definitely high-spirited to brush away all the restraints that have been set up for all the women. Either that or she just wanted to get kicked out real bad.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
T.Anjel: Whatd'ya think? Review will yah? I'll love you if you do!
Disclaimers: Rurouni Kenshin does not belong to me.
To Love the Hated - Chapter 1
"I never agreed to this!" Kenshin yelled angrily.
"I did," his large shishou answered back simply.
"Why? I could pick out a wife in due time," Kenshin argued, gripping the chair's armrest painfully.
"You don't have that kind of time, baka deshi!" Hiko said, drinking his sake in annoyance. "You refused to marry any of the princesses, so now we're resorting to this. Don't argue with me. You're dismissed."
Kenshin grit his teeth in anger, but managed to stomp away from Hiko's dark study. He had never yelled at his uncle before, and he definitely was never mad at him. Kenshin clenched his fists and walked along the hallway. Being crown prince was hell. He was forced to go to countless balls and dinners to meet up with princess after princess who spilled their pitiful selves over him, offering him of their love.
Kenshin sighed and slowed his walk to a dawdle. He was on the top floor where his and his shishou's rooms were. Because there were such minimal rooms on that floor, the whole center of the entire level was cut away, making it a balcony, which oversaw the lower floor. And being that the land was so huge, there were only two floors, the lower floor and the top floor. Kenshin leaned his elbows on the balcony rail, watching the quiet bustling of the servants and maids of the palace.
A loud shout sliced through the silence.
"Let me go! You have no right to do this! Get off of me!"
Kenshin raised his eyebrows in wonderment. Two guards were carrying a struggling woman into the palace. One held her flailing arms and the other guard carried her kicking legs.
"Let me go!" With a last effort, the woman freed her right leg and kicked the guard holding her legs squarely in the jaw, knocking him over. She swiveled around and brushed her legs under the other guard's legs. He tripped over them and fell down, but he kept a hard grip on the woman's arms and dragged her down with him.
The first guard who got kicked by the woman struggled himself up and pinned her legs down. "Stop trying to escape, Jou-chan!" he growled quite loudly.
"Then let me go," she snarled.
"No can do!" he replied cheerfully, helping his fellow guard up and keeping a firm grip on the woman. "King's orders."
"Then take me to him," she said, keeping her voice low and steady.
"No can do!" the guard repeated.
"I'm not going to audition for some damn prince!" she yelled, thrashing once again.
"How many times do I have to tell you? It's not an audition," the guard said, trying to keep her legs still.
"How is it not?" she asked frowning, and keeping herself still for a moment and glaring into the guard's eyes. "I'm being kept here against my own free will for an year to be evaluated. Why, you ask? Simple! Because the prince can't pick out some dandy little princess from some other damn kingdom, and now's he's going to have a long line of single women from his own kingdom to pick from. And I bet that if he's not satisfied, he's going to go for some other kingdom! And back to being why this is an audition. Wouldn't it be great if one of these women were to be the next queen? What and exciting turn in life that would be!" The woman didn't seemed to have taken any breaths between her sentences and sarcastic outbursts. "Of course, the prince would expect all the women to line up at the door, and being his picky little self, he would choose the fairest of the all. So now, with this great able chance of being queen, who wouldn't put rouge on their cheeks and paint their nails and line up at the door? Hell, you might as well call it an audition! To be queen, to be exact."
"What's so bad about that, Jou-chan?" the guard asked, staring right back into the woman's eyes. "You probably won't even get picked."
"Then why am I here?" she yelled explosively, popping everyone's ears that were in range.
"King's orders." And they were right back at where they started. The woman grumbled.
"Now will you go to your room in silence?" The guard who hadn't spoken the whole time suddenly said.
The woman grumbled something Kenshin couldn't hear, and suddenly she was being escorted quietly to the hallways underneath the balcony where he couldn't see.
"Feisty one," someone said beside him. It was the guard who was arguing with the woman.
"When did you get here, Sanosuke?" Kenshin asked.
"Aoshi's taking her to the room," Sano answered simply, staring down at the floor, feet below him.
"Why was she being so resistant?" Kenshin asked.
Sano shrugged. "She was shouting something about how she hated the royal kin and such. She wouldn't stop yelling or trying to escape the whole time we were in the carriage. I swear she never runs out of energy!"
"Aa.," Kenshin said, slightly disappointed for no particular reason.
"Well, I have to go pick up the rest of the girls," Sano said suddenly, getting off from the marble rail.
"Aa, Sano," Kenshin quickly said before Sano climbed down the stairs.
"Yeah?"
"What's her name?" Kenshin asked.
"The one that just came in?" Sanosuke inquired, pointing at another woman being escorted by another guard.
Kenshin shook his head. "No, the rebellious one."
"Oh her.hmmm. I think it was Kaoru. Yea. Kamiya Kaoru."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"There are no means of escape from this room, Kamiya-san," Aoshi said stiffly before shutting the door.
"Mou! This is so unfair!" Kaoru said to no one in particular, scowling at the shut door.
"Nothing in life is fair anymore. Kamiya-san, was it?"
Kaoru turned around to see a petite young woman, dressed in maid's attire of an apron and handkerchief on the head. "You can call me Kaoru," Kaoru said with a small smile.
"I'm Makimachi Misao," Misao said, putting out a hand of welcome. Kaoru shook it, and was immediate friends with the young woman. She looked around at her surroundings.
"So this is where all the candidates are to be kept?" Kaoru asked. It was a large room, decorated in white. It was quite a huge room to be holding six queen sized beds, three on each side of the room. All of them had their own hangings and quilts. To the opposite wall of the entrance door, were three doors. As Misao later said, the left one was an enormous, walk-in closet full of dresses. The second one was a small hallway leading to three extremely large bathrooms, and the third door led to a smaller closet with nightgowns and even some gis and hakamas.
"According to my instructions, you are to get a good night's rest, bathe, and pick out a dress for tomorrow," Misao said, as if reading it off of a pamphlet.
"And what are we doing tomorrow?" Kaoru asked.
Misao shrugged. "I'm not sure, but according to what Sae-san and Tae- san told me, all the women are to be treated as if they were the queen already, and according to their behavior and attitude, they will be chosen as the next queen or disqualified."
"Is there any place that I could escape from?" Kaoru asked innocently, no wanting to be pampered for a whole year.
"Nope," Misao said. "Your best chance of getting out of here is if you get the prince or king to dislike you immensely."
"I see," Kaoru said. "I could do that. Well then. Oyasumi, Misao- chan!" Kaoru said good-heartedly.
"You're sleeping already?" Misao asked. She consulted the high position of the sun. "It's so early!"
"What am I supposed to do while I'm awake?" Kaoru asked, dragging a blanket from a nearby bed to the floor. "Bask in this rich glory?" She snorted. "I think not."
"What are you doing with the blanket?" Misao asked, curiosity overwhelming her.
"Sleeping on the floor," Kaoru stated, sliding herself under the quilted covers.
"What's wrong with the bed?" Misao inquired.
"It's too soft," Kaoru replied, turning over to her side. "I could probably drown in it if I sleep in it.'
Misao sweatdropped. "You do know I'm going to have to report everything that goes on in here, ne?"
"Report everything I said while you're at it," Kaoru said. "I might be lucky enough to get kicked out on the first day."
"Are you usually this.eh.pessimistic?" Misao asked politely.
"No," Kaoru replied. She sat up from the floor. "I just have this tad bit of dislike for the whole royalty thing."
"Just a tad?"
"Just a tad," Kaoru reassured.
The door swung opened, and two other women were gently pushed inside. Their attire was almost the same as Kaoru's: Brownish rags and hand-made shoes. But both women seemed to like the richness and glory they were presented with.
"Oyasumi, Misao-chan," Kaoru said, covering her form with the blanket.
Misao gave a sigh, and introduced the other two women with the room and what they were expected to do.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Kaoru was the first to wake up. It could have been because she was the first to sleep. She yawned and stretched to her heart's content, and rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes. She stood up and looked around the room. Snoozing women who, to Kaoru's guess, were wearing new, silk nightgowns took the other five beds. She gave a sigh, and heaved the blanket she used back onto its original bed.
I might as well take a bath, Kaoru thought, and trudged along through the middle door. She grabbed a towel from a pile on the floor and stepped into one of the bathrooms. The tub is as big as my cabin, Kaoru thought with distaste and turned the modern faucet on. Steam immediately began floating from the giant tub.
Kaoru stripped herself of her rags and stepped into the steaming water. I could get used to this, she thought, closing her eyes as the warmth overcame her senses into comfortable bliss.
The rest of the morning was a blur. The other five women, as Kaoru had thought, were totally excited about the idea of being queen. They all took long baths and took their time in picking out a dress. Most of them picked fancy dresses with innumerable amounts of fluff and lace. All of it was giving Kaoru a migraine. She, herself, had picked out a simple, blue dress that brushed the ground. It covered her shoulders and had a very modest neckline.
Misao entered their room and announced that breakfast was to be served. All of the women filed out feeling ecstatic and nervous. Kaoru was just feeling exhausted from wearing a dress. She followed the other women out but ended up tripping at the hem of her dress.
"Kuso," Kaoru mumbled as she fell face-flat on the floor. Thank goodness it was carpeted.
"Daijoubu?" Misao asked, kneeling over the fallen Kaoru.
"I'm fine," Kaoru huffed and sat up. "Do you have a knife with you?"
"Don't do it!" Misao said in sudden alarm. "You can live through this! Don't."
"Baka," Kaoru said good-heartedly. "I'm not going to kill myself. I'm just going to shorten the dress a little."
Misao let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "You could just hold the dress up while you walk."
"I'm probably not going to remember to," Kaoru said and held out a hand. Misao put her pocketknife in it. With a loud rip, Kaoru cut off a foot of the dress off of the bottom.
"You ripped so much off!" Misao exclaimed.
"I could actually run in this then," Kaoru said with a grin.
"But they don't expect you to run," Misao said pointedly. "I'll help you pick out another dress. C'mon, Kaoru-san."
"It's okay," Kaoru said, getting up and dusting herself off. "I'm going to breakfast like this."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kenshin sighed. He was sitting at the end of the long maple table adorned with flowers and bowls of fruits. Hiko sat at the other end, looking satisfied and amused.
"They're coming," Kenshin heard one of the guards say from the far wall. And just as he said it, a line of woman filed into the huge dining room. They all looked flushed and nervous as they all took seats near the middle of the table. They didn't seem to want to go near Kenshin or Hiko.
Kenshin scanned the women and was looking for a particular woman who sparked his interest the other day. Kamiya Kaoru. She's not here, Kenshin noted with disappointment. Is she skipping breakfast?
As the women seated themselves, the servants of the palace served mouth-watering dishes along the table. Hiko seemed to watching all of them, seeing who dared touch their food before he did.
Kenshin's ears perked up at the hurried footsteps that approached the echoing dining room. It was Kamiya with a simple dress of blue, which was ripped at the bottom. She still looked beautiful.
"Sorry I'm late!" she yelled out, directing her tardy comment at the king.
Hiko eyed her. "What happened to your dress?"
"Oh this?" Kaoru asked innocently, spreading her dress out like a fan. "I ripped it."
Hiko raised his eyebrows, asking for an explanation.
"I kept tripping over the hem," Kaoru answered honestly in a chirpy voice. "So I decided to rip the bottom off to make it more convenient for me."
"Go change," Hiko commanded in a cool voice which made two women near him sigh.
"There's no point," Kaoru argued back. "The dresses were meant for the women staying here for the time being, are they not? So I'm going to assume that this dress is mine, and unless you are planning to wear it, Ou- sama, I'm not going to change out of it."
Kenshin could have sworn he saw a temple pulse on his shishou's forehead. "Well then. I suggest you eat your breakfast if you're going to be so stubborn."
Kaoru kept her nose in the air and took an empty seat two seats away from Kenshin. A plate was immediately set in front of her with steaming eggs, pancakes and bacon. She had never seen this kind of food before. She prodded it with her fork, examining the oily strip of meat.
"It's food from the west," Kenshin explained to the curious woman.
"Sou ka," Kaoru said, still staring at the bacon and poking it. She plopped a strip in her mouth. "Oishii!!" Kaoru exclaimed, savoring the taste in her mouth. She noticed the disapproving looks she got from the other women. "Oh! Were we not supposed to eat yet?" Kaoru asked to the woman next to her quite loudly.
"You're supposed to eat after Ou-sama and Ouji-sama take their first bite, tanuki," the woman replied back.
Kaoru scowled at the nickname. "So when is Ou-sama planning to eat?" Kaoru asked.
The woman shrugged. "Any time now.," she said watching the burly king. Kaoru tapped her foot while waiting for him to at least take a bite of his food. As if he had wanted to put the woman on hold, he slowly put a piece of his pancake in his mouth. Arrogant man, Kaoru noted and turned over to the prince who had already taken a nibble of his eggs. The other women began eating quietly and politely.
Kaoru watched the prince from the corner of her eye and couldn't help admitting that he was quite good-looking. His flaming bangs just brushed over his soft, violet eyes, which was a combination Kaoru didn't usually see.
It doesn't matter if he's good-looking, Kaoru thought to herself. He's still a prince, and he's probably some jerk wanting all these women. Feh! Kaoru slurped her miso soup loudly. She immediately perked up. She motioned for a nearby servant to come over.
"Hai?" he asked politely, leaning over her chair.
"What's in this?" Kaoru asked, pointing at the miso soup with her spoon.
He sweatdropped. "I'm not quite sure, ma'am. I don't make the food."
"Who does?" Kaoru inquired.
"Tae-san and Sae-san," the man replied. "They're usually in the kitchens if you wish to speak to them."
"I see. Thanks!" Kaoru chirped and slapped the servant on the back for good measure. He stumbled.
"No problem," he said, and took his position back by the wall.
Kaoru quickly finished the rest of the food, clanging her utensils and slurping her soup as she did. The women shot nervous glances at her, trying her to signal to her to eat more like a polite woman. Kaoru ignored them and downed the last of her food with large gulps of water. She slammed her glass down and gave a satisfying sigh. It sounded quite loud compared to the quiet way everyone was eating.
Kenshin watched the woman with interest. She was definitely brave to have argued with the king, and she was most definitely high-spirited to brush away all the restraints that have been set up for all the women. Either that or she just wanted to get kicked out real bad.
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T.Anjel: Whatd'ya think? Review will yah? I'll love you if you do!